Download

Benjamin Handel of UC Berkley focuses on how individuals interact with the medical care sector to make important decisions. This involves using the information available and the incentives they face. The incentives can be financial and non-financial for both the consumer and the physician. For the consumer there can be the incentive of deductibles and high costs associated with switching plans. For physicians, fees are assigned to procedures. IT support in the health field is far behind IT support in other areas of the economy, and there is no model for physicians to compare to one another. This, and the patient or consumer and physician usually have no previous knowledge of one another's history.